


She Slipped Away

by kiwiqueen



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, Fluff, Hypothermia, Implied Sexual Content, Pining, Post-Golden Deer Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Separations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:48:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25846087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiwiqueen/pseuds/kiwiqueen
Summary: Dear brother,It pains me to leave you without saying a proper goodbye, but I’m afraid that this matter is of utmost importance and cannot wait any longer.  When I was injured in the battle against the Almyran militia, I began questioning the choices that have led me here.  You know that I have never loved to fight, but I chose to anyway because I loved you and wanted you to feel that the Locket would be in good hands when you returned home.  But now I’ve realized that there’s someone else that I love as well, and I need to go and be with her.Your dearest sister,Hilda Valentine Goneril
Relationships: Marianne von Edmund/Hilda Valentine Goneril
Kudos: 38





	She Slipped Away

She dreamt of Marianne.

She dreamt of the last kiss that they had shared before Marianne had gone back to her adoptive father. Marianne’s body had felt warm against her own. She had smelled of lavender. She had tasted like heaven. Everything around them had melted away until it was only Marianne and her, together in an enchanted embrace.

She had seen Marianne turn her back and leave.

And she awoke in her hard cot in Fódlan’s Locket, feeling colder and emptier than she had when she had gone to bed the previous night.

Hilda anguished every day in her choice to follow her brother to the border. Although she was heralded as a war hero, her every day was full of the same arduous labor as the other soldiers of the Locket. At the very least, most days were mundane, but two days earlier there had been an attack on the fortress by an Almyran militia in an act of rebellion against their new Leader Man. During the defense Hilda had taken an axe to her side. Then, the previous day had been spent laid up in bed. A healer had come by to see her. The sensation of the white magic had reminded her of Marianne.

It hadn’t quite been like Marianne’s magic. No one’s was. The professor’s felt cold, Annette’s was like the ringing of a bell, Mercedes’ was akin to a morning cup of tea, and Lysithea’s felt like fire in her veins. But Marianne’s magic. . . it was pure bliss. This healer’s magic, as everyone else’s, had felt frail and feeble in comparison.

So here she was.

Not only did her entire body ache from the wound, her heart ached from thinking about her. She had managed to keep her mind off of Marianne for a long while, but being alone with her thoughts and the magical healing had forced her back to the forefront.

Hilda gazed into the middle distance of her simple brick walls and recalled the first time she had met Marianne.

Garreg Mach held a small party for their incoming students, and it was there that she had met most of her classmates for the first time, Marianne included. It hadn’t been love at first sight, but something about the pensive look on her face had captured Hilda’s interest from the start.

That had been in the reception hall, the same location where they had shared their first dance a few moons later. In her memory, she saw Marianne’s smooth, fair hands in her own scarred and scathed ones. She wouldn’t meet her eyes for more than a moment at a time, but the hints of a smile played at her lips. Goddess, how she hadn’t wanted to let her go. Perhaps she had wanted to kiss her in that moment, she just had yet to realize it.

Not that realizing it had taken long. The very next day, the pair had gone on a walk together before sharing a pot of tea and their first kiss.

At the memory, Hilda’s lips ached like they were being grated with sandpaper. How she longed for the sensation of Marianne’s mouth on her own. She could heal her with a simple touch, no magic necessary.

And she had, on multiple occasions.

Long before they had become close friends, when Hilda took her first life in the Red Canyon, Marianne had placed one delicate hand on her shoulder and assured her that the Goddess would care for their souls. Whenever she was feeling her most hopeless, when their professor had disappeared during the defense of Garreg Mach, when she was certain that the Empire would crush their rebellion, Marianne would hold her close in her arms and restore her hope.

So who was to heal her when Marianne left?

It was, perhaps, a foolish question to ask herself, but it brought her thoughts back to where they had been upon her awakening. A farewell kiss, her fingers knotted in the strands of a blue braid, denial of the fact that their paths might never cross again.

The sun was about a third of its way through the sky, if she had to guess. Her curtains were drawn. They swayed in the breeze from the open window, much like Marianne’s skirts had when she had walked away but for the fact that the shadows were cast in the opposite direction.

Marianne had had to leave. Hilda couldn’t hold it against her. Her adoptive father was growing old, and Edmund would need a margravine. Just like her brother would return to Goneril and become duke when their father died, leaving the Locket under her supervision. Marianne would govern, attend social functions, perform all the tasks expected of the eldest child of a noble family. And she would likely have an arranged marriage to someone politically advantageous.

The very thought made Hilda feel sick. That someone else would be married to her Marianne. That someone else would hold her tight, kiss her, do things that Hilda wanted to be the only one to do to her. Her stomach coiled, and a fresh wave of pain lashed through the wound in her side.

She rolled over, burying her face in her pillow in a weak attempt to numb the agonies shooting through her. She fell into a fitful slumber for some time, dreaming of an axe buried in her stomach, dreaming of Marianne’s healing touch, dreaming of their peaceful days at the Officer’s Academy, waking periodically, each time in more pain than the last. She bit her lips and flexed her fingers in myriad vain attempts to find something, anything to distract her.

Nothing helped.

Finally, she rose from her bed. The sun had sank below the horizon now, and the first quarter moon cut through the darkness with its slight, pale light. Hilda strapped on a pair of boots and grabbed a heavy cloak; the Wyvern Moon winds would gust cold and hard against her.

Despite its status as a nigh-invulnerable fortress, the Locket’s storerooms were not especially well-guarded. She slipped easily into one to grab a vulnerary to dull the pain, then, as an afterthought, a well of ink and a quill.

She returned to sit at the desk in her quarters, possibly for the last time, and began to write.

Though she had never enjoyed the process, she had written to her brother a great many times. In those letters, she always struggled to find the correct words or to tell him anything of interest, but now the words flowed easily from the nib of her quill. She read the words back to herself one final time before leaving the letter on her desk for him to find.

Dear brother,

It pains me to leave you without saying a proper goodbye, but I’m afraid that this matter is of utmost importance and cannot wait any longer. When I was injured in the battle against the Almyran militia, I began questioning the choices that have led me here. You know that I have never loved to fight, but I chose to anyway because I loved you and wanted you to feel that the Locket would be in good hands when you returned home. But now I’ve realized that there’s someone else that I love as well, and I need to go and be with her.

Your dearest sister,

Hilda Valentine Goneril

Letter in place, Hilda made for the stables. The mare that she intended to take north was already asleep when she arrived, so she woke it gently by stroking its mane.

“I know, girl. I’m tired, too,” she spoke aloud to the pegasus. Some habits were contagious, she supposed. She retrieved her saddle and mounted the pegasus.

The autumnal wind felt cool against Hilda’s flushed face. She hadn’t realized how tepid the temperature of her room had been until she left. Cailleach, the brightest star in the sky, shone radiant to the north, and she followed it.

The air currents along Fódlan’s Throat were favorable to her northward journey. From her vantage point, the lights of Ordelia far below glittered smaller than the stars above. She was on her way, she thought, pulling her cloak tighter around her shoulders. She was far away from the ground, far away from the Locket, far away from the pain of her wound. There was a chance that this plan would unfold without a hitch.

Trouble brewed, though, in the form of a storm. The skies above the aquatic capital were thick with dark clouds. The wind whipped angrily, and the already brisk temperature dropped to an icy chill. Torrential rain filled her vision.

Hilda cried out as a gale stole the cloak from around her body. She made an attempt to steer her steed around and reclaim it, but it was already lost to the murky sky. The cold was already seeping into her skin, and she was soaked from the rain. Turning back would leave her travelling against the wind in the roughest part of the storm, though. She had no choice but to commit to the course forward toward Edmund.

She and the pegasus continued onward. The cold was growing more insidious, but Edmund wasn’t far away.

Hilda’s teeth chattered. She was shaking. Her fingertips felt numb, but her grip remained tight on the reins.

Edmund wasn’t far away.

She tried to focus her thoughts on Marianne, waiting for her when she arrived, but she was having difficulty remembering. She was all a blur of blue hair and soft hands. She felt tired, but she had to keep flying.

Edmund wasn’t far away.

Edmund. . .

Wasn’t. . .

A blue fog was the last thing Hilda remembered before losing consciousness.

And it was the first thing she saw when she awoke. When she saw Marianne sitting at her bedside, she was certain she was dreaming, but–

“You’re awake.” 

When Marianne spoke, her sweet voice told Hilda that this was reality.

“Yeah,” her head and side ached, but she didn’t care. She was lying in a soft bed, wrapped in several layers of fluffy blankets, in a small and unfamiliar, but still elegant, bedroom. A fire roared in the hearth, illuminating the room almost as much as Marianne, who sat in the chair next to the bedside table.

Marianne poured two cups from a teapot and offered one to her. “Rose petal,” she said. “I know it’s your favorite.”

Hilda accepted the cup and took a sip of the heavenly warm liquid. “Where are we?”

“We’re in my adoptive father’s manor. You should rest. You were cold as death when we found you.”

Hilda did as she was told, taking small sips of the rose infusion. The smell and taste of it were some of the small joys of which she had been deprived at the Locket; there, they stocked only hardy, bitter teas that could survive being transported up the mountain. She set the cup down on the bedside table when she was done. Only then did she notice her waterlogged dress, stockings, and smallclothes laying out by the fire.

Marianne followed her gaze, and a deep flush rose in her cheeks. “Oh,” she said, “I can get you some of my clothes if you’d like.”

Without waiting for an answer, Marianne left. She returned quickly, though, with a loose nightgown in her arms. She held it out to Hilda and turned around, head tilted downward.

Hilda unraveled the bundle of blankets around her and dressed in the gown that Marianne had brought her.

“Is that okay?” Marianne asked.

“It’s perfect.”

Marianne turned back around to face Hilda, her face still pink. “I should probably leave and let you rest.”

Hilda stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Wait,” she said, “Marianne. I’m still cold. Will you please stay? Help keep me warm?” 

Marianne’s blush darkened at the request, but she nodded and stepped closer. She placed a hand on Hilda’s wounded side; she must have seen the scar when she undressed her. They were only inches apart now.

Unexpectedly, Marianne closed the gap between them. She felt like paradise.

Hilda guided Marianne down into the bed alongside her. She wrapped her arms around Marianne and pulled her against herself. Marianne pressed a kiss above Hilda’s collarbone and rested her head in the crook of her neck. Hilda shivered at the simple contact. The many months that she had spent away from her made her touch all the more breathtaking. The scent of rose lingering in the warm air, Hilda felt as though she and Marianne could melt together. She had risked everything to be here, but the feeling of Marianne’s body against hers made it all worthwhile. A pleasant warmth permeated Hilda to the core. As the fire burned down to embers, the two women drifted together into a peaceful sleep.


End file.
